What Flowers Remember -- Review and Giveaway

Thought for the Day:

“Only put off till tomorrow what you are willing to die left undone.”  ~ Pablo Picasso ~

Gifts for My Writer Friends:

Kathy Temean at Writers and Illustrators has a great post called 15 Things to Consider When Writing Description. Click HERE to see it. It is really worth your time. In fact, just about everything on Kathy’s blog is worth your time.

Click HERE for an article on how to create an anti-hero from Writer’s Digest.  

And another one also on Writer’s Digest, this one written by Angela Ackerman, on avoiding unlikable characters. It can be found HERE and is worth your time.

Last week, I reviewed Saving Lucas Biggs, one of my favorite books this year, and the publisher was kind enough to offer a book for a giveaway since I absolutely refused to give my copy away. Our winner this week (drum roll please!) is Myra! Congratulations, Myra. I will be in touch about getting your copy of Saving Lucas Biggs to you right away. If you didn't win, stay tuned. I have another wonderful giveaway today.

A couple years ago, I read and reviewed an absolutely charming book called The Summer of Hammers and Angels by Shannon Wiersbitzky. If you missed that review, you can find it HERE. Shannon was also kind enough to do an interview which you can find HERE. I loved the characters and setting of that lovely story. It was one of those books that was simply over too soon to suit me. Shannon contacted me recently and shared the news she had a new book coming out. Would I be interested in having a copy to review on my blog? Would I ever! I loved her writing, so I knew I would enjoy her new book. Imagine my absolute delight when I found the same characters and same small town I had loved in the earlier book.

In What Flowers Remember, we find young Delia a couple years later. She spends a lot of time with a neighbor, Old Red, who has a flower garden beyond belief. He is an absolute wizard with his flowers and is sharing his secrets and knowledge with Delia. He shares something else along the way, and that is stories of Tucker's Ferry and Old Red's life. After Delia sees a woman stop in front of the farm one day and try to steal of seed-laden flower, Delia talks to Old Red about starting a business -- the two of them -- saving and selling the seeds from his heirloom flowers. He agrees and they work hard on this business. But now and then, Old Red seems weak and forgetful. Delia, her best friend Mae, and Tommy Parker, former nemesis of Delia, but now something of a sweetheart, all notice the problem is getting worse and worse. In fact, the whole town is aware, and when Old Red

Shannon Wiersbitzky

has a really bad episode, townspeople contact his son, who takes Old Red for an evaluation. It's Alzheimer's. Delia, along with many others, is devastated by the news. But Delia is bound and determined to save Old Red's memories so he can never forget -- not his stories, not his flowers, and certainly not Delia.

What Flowers Remember is every bit as charming as Shannon's earlier book, though more serious and contemplative. I love it and I think most of you will as well. If you haven't yet read The Summer of Hammers and Angels, do get to it. It's a real treat and will make your experience with What Flowers Remember just a bit richer. But whatever you do, don't miss this wonderful book.

  

You can have a chance to win a signed copy of What Flowers Remember. All you need do is be a subscriber or follower and leave a comment. If you are not yet a subscriber or follower, check near the top at the right and sign up. Free and easy. If you want more chances to win this book, post the link to this  blog on your blog or Facebook or Tweet about the giveaway. Tell me what you have done, and I will put extra chances in the drawing for you. 

Shannon Messenger is the founder of Marvelous Middle-Grade Monday and has links to many other reviews and giveaways on her blog. Check it out HERE.

Talk About Language! A Review of Healing Waters: A Hawaiian Story by Joyce Moyer Hostetter

If you are reading this in your email, don’t forget to click on the headline to go to my blog. If you haven’t subscribed yet, please do. Oh, and I love comments. Spurring me on this week is the following quote.

"Once the game is over, the King and the pawn go back in the same box." ~ Italian Proverb

For my writer friends, here is a link to check out that might help you with writer’s block – something I’ve been dealing with lately:

http://childrenspublishing.blogspot.com/2011/07/brainstorming-lists-to-beat-back.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2Fkidlit+%28Adventures+in+Children%27s+Publishing%29  I’m trying to read my way out of my writer’s block, so you will be getting some reviews here, a win for you and me.

Now, to announce the winner of the copy of The Summer ofHammers and Angels, (insert drumroll here) – Michelle Fayard! It will go out in the mail very soon. Congratulations, Michelle.

When I first began this blog back in January, I wrote a post about True Grit. I was fascinated with the language Charles Portis used for the dialogue in that book. It really set the reader in the time and place of the book. If you missed that review or would like to revisit it, click HERE.

Joyce Moyer Hostetter

In August, I attended a wonderful writer’s retreat run by the Highlights Foundation and led by the wonderful editor Carolyn Yoder. You can read about that, if you like, by clicking HERE. One of the special treats that comes with attending a workshop or retreat at Highlights run by Carolyn is that you will have some visiting authors. We had two this year: Kate Messner and Joyce Moyer Hostetter. Stay tuned because I’ll be writing about Kate Messner’s sweet books in a future blog, but today I want to write about Joyce Moyer Hostetter’s incredible book, HealingWaters: A Hawaiian Story. Now I’m still having trouble with my Amazon link, so clicking on the cover of the book won’t do you any good, but if you click on the title, it will link you to Amazon where you can order the book.

Joyce and her charming husband, Chuck, had a nice long visit with us, and Joyce talked about writing, researching, and the writer’s life in general. It was a lovely time. Then, as icing on the cake, Joyce gave each of us an autographed copy of her new book, HealingWaters: A Hawaiian Story. I finally found time last week, as I fought my way through a terrible flu, to read it. I have to admit, it was hard to feel sorry for my coughing, stuffy self reading this amazing story of a young boy with leprosy.

I didn’t know much about leprosy before reading this book, just a kind of horrific idea about a disease that caused body parts to fall away. I knew there had been leper colonies, but never really thought about what that meant.

Pia is quite young at the beginning of the story, and the story seems to be about his deep friendship with an older boy, Kamaka, a brother/father figure to him, and the wonderful life Pia has with his warm, extended family. A picture is drawn of typical family life among native Hawaiians. But when Pia is diagnosed with leprosy at age thirteen, Kamaka disappears from his life. No one seems to know why Kamaka refuses to see him. Shortly Pia is wrenched from his mother and little sister and sent to the leper colony on the island of Moloka‘i.

On Moloka‘i, Pia finds conditions harsh beyond belief. No one is there to protect the young from predatory people, there is no hospital or even housing, food is scarce, clothing non-existent. Pia is alone – terribly and completely alone. After living like a wild animal for some time, in order to survive, he finally becomes the slave of a man, Boki, who takes care of himself by stealing from and intimidating others. Pia becomes hardened by this life. One day, Pia faces Tamaka again when Tamaka arrives on the island with his wife. His wife, Malia, has leprosy and Tamaka found a way to come along to care for her. Malia and ultimately Tamaka force Pia to examine his life and work through his problems, becoming emotionally whole again. It is a remarkable coming-of-age story of friendship and love and persistence. And let me underline “love” in that. It demonstrates many kinds of love very authentically. You will care deeply about these characters and be moved by this story.

In this heartbreaking first-person account, Pia tells his sad tale in a most compelling voice. It’s that voice and Joyce’s use of language to create it that captured my interest from a writer’s point of view. From the first page, I heard Pia’s voice in my head as clearly as if he sat next to me and told me his story. I thought a lot about how she managed to do this, and it made me think back to Charles Portis’s wonderful book. There are some distinct commonalities. Pia speaks in a rather formal way without the use of many contractions or any slang at all. There are occasional Hawaiian words dropped into Pia’s thoughts, and they remind us that Pia did not grow up speaking English.

“Again and again I hit the man who had entrapped me. I did not think of the moment that I realized I was trapped. I did not think about the hard work I’d done for the last four years, or the cruelties that Boki had inflicted on me. I did not think at all. I simply released the anger that had collected. Anger toward Boki, toward Kamaka, and even toward God.”

It doesn’t quite trip off his tongue, and I felt sometimes as if I were listening to some of my old students who learned English as a second language. And yet, it is so subtle that I really had to study the writing to come to this conclusion. It is absolutely consistent through the book and takes you directly to the time and place of this incredible story.

When you read HealingWaters: A Hawaiian Story, you will understand the quote at the beginning of this post. Let me know if you get the connection.

Also, things will be a little different here on my blog for the next three weeks. We will be traveling around Europe, and I will be blogging about that. Of course, I might get a book or two read on the planes, so I might write about that as well. And I have another author interview coming up, so I will try to post that as well. Stop by. Should be some fun stuff here.

Book Giveaway and Author Interview with Debut Author Shannon Wiersbitzky

If you are reading this in your email, don’t forget to click on the headline to go to my blog. If you haven’t subscribed yet, please do. Oh, and I love comments. Spurring me on this week is the following quote:

"Quantity produces quality. If you only write a few things, you're doomed." ~ Ray Bradbury

For my writer friends, here are a couple of great links to check out:

http://www.techrepublic.com/article/10-flagrant-grammar-mistakes-that-make-you-look-stupid/6075621

http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/10things/10-wording-blunders-that-make-you-look-stupid/194?tag=nl.e064   You might get a chuckle out of these or a groan, and they might just remind you of your Uncle Waldo or neighbor Jimmy Bob.

Now for the real reason for this post. Recently, I reviewed a wonderful book for middle-grade readers called The Summer of Hammers and Angels by Shannon Wiersbitzky. (I’m having trouble linking to Amazon, so clicking on the cover won’t do you any good, but if you click on the title, you will be linked to the Amazon page where you can order the book.) If you missed the review, click HERE and give it a read. It’s a sweet book and you will enjoy it. After I posted the review, I contacted Shannon and asked if she would do an interview with me, and I am ecstatic to say, she agreed. As a writer, I always learn much from these interviews. I hope you will enjoy reading this as much as I did.

Having your first novel published must be an incredible thrill. Can you tell us about the journey to this “overnight” success for you?

(Sound of laughter …) Well, like any journey, it wasn’t “overnight”. I’ve been a writer all my life, but didn’t begin writing for children until 2000. Most of my early manuscripts are awful….let’s just say the words I wrote didn’t always improve the value of the paper. But hey, that’s part of the journey. As I wrote I learned…and I’m still learning. When all is said and done, with the pit stops and wrong turns, Hammers took me somewhere between two and three years to “get right”.

What was your inspiration for the book?

There wasn’t one single event or situation that drove me to write The Summer of Hammers and Angels. The heart of the story is a community coming together. When that happens, when you’re a part of that, it feels like anything is possible in the world…I wanted to try and capture that spirit. We need more of that today.

Shannon Wiersbitzky

How did you discover your fictional characters? Are they based on real people?

None of the characters are exact replicas of actual people. Bits of characters were certainly gleaned from real people though. I used to know an old man who sat on his front porch and greeted everyone passing by. I took my mental picture of that man, made him grumpier and misunderstood, and turned him into Old Red.

I met a woman in New York once too. I was on a church youth trip, repairing a building, and she cooked us dinner. The food was amazing, the kind of southern home cooking that feels more like a hug than a meal. When I thanked her she said, “Honey, all I know how to do is cook fried chicken.” That one comment stuck with me and is the core of Miss Martha.

The voice of Delia is as clear and real as any I’ve ever read. I noticed you’ve lived a lot of different places, including the place I consider my real home, Minnesota. How were you able to make the language so consistently southern for Delia and the other characters?

Thanks so much! I’ve lived many places and travel as much as I can. There really wasn’t any trick to channeling that southern voice. As a child, my summer camp was my grandma’s house in West Virginia. I was her shadow. I can slip into southern mode in a snap. When Delia started telling me her story, I listened, and had sense enough to start writing it down.

Your writing has such a great, natural flow to it. Do you spend a lot of time planning your writing – outlining and such – or is it a much more organic process for you? Maybe you could talk a little about your writing process.

That is a wonderful compliment. It doesn’t always feel flowing and natural when I’m writing. Sometimes it feels like the words are coming out kicking and screaming. One of the best things about writing though is that it doesn’t have to be right the first time…that is why God invented editing! I have never learned or studied the art of writing. I write by instinct. Sometimes I go to conferences or writing workshops and other writers talk all kinds of fancy technique. It can be intimidating! For any writer out there who feels the same, don’t be discouraged! I don’t create detailed outlines. I do keep a simple list of ideas for the story and characters, but it is an evolving list, it certainly isn’t fully baked when I start to write. One bit of actual real-writer-technique I learned this year that I do find useful is storyboarding. When I’m struggling with a chapter, I’ve found that storyboarding can really help. Carolyn Coman describes storyboarding really well in her book, Writing Stories. 

Writing can be a lonely business. Do you work with critique groups or critique partners? If so, in what ways do you find it helpful?

I have a wonderful critique group that I’ve been working with for ten years now. I’ve also been to several of the Highlights workshops. I’m a working mom….writing is what I do in my spare time…so the focused days at Highlights are a gift. There is magic in those cabins! (Or maybe the magic is Marsha’s cooking?!) The writers I’ve met there have been wonderful. Having a week with people who truly value writing and the creative process fills up my battery and keeps me motivated long after I’ve gone. In writing it is easy to doubt that what you’re writing has value…you need to find folks to cheer you on.

You worked with über editor Stephen Roxburgh, just a dream for many of us. How was that experience for you?

First, I think Stephen would love being described as an über editor! He truly is brilliant. He knows what works in a story. Period. He’s worked with so many amazing writers…I’m humbled to be on the list. I’d send Stephen any story. I trust him implicitly. It does get a bit annoying that he is right all the time though…

But I know you want more about the day-to-day experience, so here you go. Stephen isn’t the coddling type. He is tough and to the point and he pushed me to be better….which meant I really had to work. His favorite notation is a big question mark. That’s it….just a question mark. It really meant, “OMG…seriously, this is the best you can do here?” At least that is what I heard him say in each of those damn question marks.

What has been most thrilling for you since your novel debuted?

A young reader posted a review on Amazon that brought tears to my eyes. She wrote: 

For those who give, it is a motivator to do more.

For those in need, it is a message of hope, faith, and courage.

When I read that I knew she had really connected to the heart of the book. If this book inspires any young person to go and help others…what a joy that would be.

What advice would you pass along to those of us who haven’t gotten that first book published?  

I certainly don’t have all the answers but here are a few thoughts…..

Work on a story that inspires you. Persevere. Write regularly. Find people who will give you honest feedback, folks that will write those stupid question marks all over your manuscript. Be open to learning. Be open to criticism. Be open to scrapping words and starting over. Be patient. But whatever you do…keep writing!

Thank you for so generously sharing your time and thoughts.

I have a copy of The Summer of Hammers and Angels to offer to one of you reading this. If you leave a comment sometime before my next post (probably next Tuesday) and you live somewhere in the U.S., I will put your name in a hat from which my completely unbiased six-year-old granddaughter will choose one name, and the winner will receive a copy of this wonderful book. I know some of my blogging friends, more technically adept than I, have magical computer randomizers to draw names, but you will just have to trust my granddaughter and me to do this right.